I have an anecdote to add. Here in calfornia everyone is supposed to be 'open and tolerant', etc, and if you dare used a racial slur in school you would get sent to the principal's office.

However in 11th grade AP English we were discussing William Faulkner's "The Sound And The Fury" in a circle under the not-so-great supervision of a substitute teacher and the 'class clown', this 300 lb mexican said regarding one of the characters "Well that's because he's an imbred hick from the South like [insert my real name here]" I stood up and almost threw my book... or my desk given my adrenaline at him. My mother is from Southern California, "The OC", while my father is from Alabama. I am not imbred, and I am well read and verbose which adds insult to injury with the "hick" remark but the rest of the class just laughed. I was shit out of luck. He received NO reprimand whatsoever for making that comment.

The phrase "I can't be racist. I'm not white." Get's thrown around a lot too. That makes my head hurt. The irony alone... Ugh.

I'd like to take a little time out right now and remind people that while I encourage everyone to discuss their pain that society has unfairly thrown on them (and how we can try to give society the middle finger in return), that we should not get into the 'contest' of 'comparing' pain... because nobody wins. Pain is pain.

Scribbled has experienced legitimate pain, and my heart goes out to hir.

I have empathy for sarofset because though my views are not quite as extreme, I have experienced similiar siutations, but I have not gone to the extreme of telling somebody that by 'gender' does not match my 'biological sex', ie sarofset telling people that xe's not gay, but a girl.

I am simply asexual and have been 'accused of being gay' as far back as my first year in middle school simply because I didn't have a partner.

We all have pain, but if we start trying to 'outdo' each other than nobody wins :( It's just depressing!

It is depressing, makes me wanna go hide under a rock. just because someone else is upset or hurting over something you find trifling doesn't make it hurt any less for them.

We weren't quite there yet, but we were in danger of getting there :( I just wanted everyone to know that I acknowledge all of their pain.

Tana acknowledges too! And Tana has make you feel better hugs for those who want them.

Though I find it kidna funny, people tend to see me as a rock of some sort, but i'm more like that branch you grab onto when you fall off a cliff, I'm there, and I'm holding for now, though how much longer, even I don't know.

Crow: Just to be clear. I identify as a girl more than a guy, but I'm more toward the middle. My preference is still for girls. I have a massive innate distrust of males because of my father and other certain male figures in my life, so I could never be bi, or gay. Still have no problem with gay people. Just don't understand anyone, including girls, who prefer men. Not completely anyway.

I wasn't trying to get into a contest, I just felt like I was being told I had it easy, or hadn't been through anything. That I do not like. lol.

I'm sure that was not the intention though.

*sniffles* Tana feels ignored
but Tana is sleepy *curls up in chair in the corner*

Tana!! You is not ignored! D:

I sorry.

Depressed recently. Not doing so good. :( ...not good at all.

Tana is fucked up too
I tend to sta away from society because I don't fit in their net little box I' like my cat I had in highschool, wanted in the box, but his ss ws t obig for it XD So he usualy broke the box.

Tana says strange words. lol.

yes I do, though most of those are probably miss types....the stupi keyboard doesn't want to acknowledge that I am pushing buttons sometimes


welp, Tana is going to bed now, night night folks

Goodnight Tana! Has good dreams. :)

Wait, where are you from?

...yer not dating a man. >.> *grumbles slightly*

I do not care sweetie. lol. He or she is fine. Such words have no meaning whatsoever to me. :)

ljos- You should make your partner read the front post and key points/posts of this thread -.-

Not remotely what I said. I said very clearly, that I was asking for clarification. I thought Scribbled identified as male. Hence my question. Had I known zie was like me, not having a gender I would not have asked. Thank you for attacking me there though. That was nice of you.

As for the "place of privilege" thing. You're right. I'm not in one. Scribbled said I was though, or didn't you read their post?

Being white does not grant any kind of privilege. It does the opposite, because of political correctness. Same with being straight, same with being male. All of those things limit me in ways so called minorities (I love in Colorado, and white people have not been the majority for a few years now) don't realize.

I know you are from another country and have no perspective on things in the U.S. but here, if you are a white, straight, male, you are politically demonized by everyone, all the time. You are made to feel ashamed for simply existing. The PC movement in the U.S. is way out of control. White people, especially males, cannot get grants for school, cannot get decent loans for school, and are the last people hired for any kind of job a college student can get.

PC, is not about respect here. It's about being able to attack people like me, or at least that's about all people use it for.

When people look at me, they don't see my disability, or my gender identity, they see the pretty white boy, and automatically assume I'm rich, ignorant, and basically evil. That's not the case in some countries, and maybe parts of mine, but where I live that's how it's been since I was born.

*giant deep breath* Again. I do not mean to growl, or get irritated about this, but it's an issue that's in the process of screwing up my life right now. I apologize. Let's talk about something else please. I really don't feel like crying again today. Thank you.

Tana is sleepy.

I don't recall having posted in this thread before (though I have a bad memory), but I've been reading through it a bit for a while now.

Gender stereotypes have a tendency to upset me. I remember being in a store once and seeing a little boy with his mother. They passed the makeup aisle and he expressed some interest in it, to which the mother responded with a blunt "No, that's for girls." Had I not been so afraid of confrontation as I am, I would have said something.
I feel the same about things like what hairstyles people are expected to have, what clothing they are "supposed" to wear, and what activities they are or aren't expected to enjoy. I hate being asked online if I'm a girl just because I mentioned that I like a certain color or that I'm in a relationship with a male.
Most of all, I hate being told (in person) that it's impossible to consider me anything but female because I happen to look or act a certain way sometimes. I'm currently having this issue with my husband, who claims that he is trying but has yet to show any real effort in his actions as far as referring to me with the proper pronouns and changing the way he apparently perceives me. I understand that some people just don't "get it" and have trouble relating or changing how they think, but I'm sick of having to feel like I'm in the wrong for expecting my feelings to be acknowledged and respected. I get a lot of "It's so hard on me/us/them to deal with this!" What about me?! All I have asked of anyone else is to see me for who I am. I have had to deal with the stereotypes and the rude remarks all my life, and I am finally getting tired of it enough to start speaking up a little. It's going to be a long, hard road "coming out" to everyone and insisting that they recognize me for what I am, and I'm downright terrified to do it... but I can't live my life pretending any more, so I count myself lucky that I at least have the support of a few people--and hopefully I will continue to have my husband's support in the future.
I do not view myself as a "female" and never really have. But I feel like I am trapped and forced to live as one because I fall under the things that people perceive as being female traits--especially in the physical department, which I really can't do anything about at this time. It makes me miserable. I get nervous whenever I'm in public and need to use a restroom, because there are only two options. One makes me feel wrong, the other makes everyone around me feel wrong. I hate living in a society that only recognizes two genders and treats the issue as though it's totally black-and-white. "You're either a male or a female--and if you're transgendered, you must identify fully as the opposite sex and intend to have a full transition." Not true.
I see myself as being a natural male who often identifies as both and/or neither gender(s), or as a sort of third gender. Everyone else just sees me as a female who gets confused sometimes. I can't expect them to know how I feel without my explaining it, but I also can't help feeling a little hurt every time someone says "she".
For instance, when my husband, his brothers, and I visited their family... When we were leaving, their stepmom was laughing at how the little boy had hugged all the "other boys" goodbye but not me and joked, "It's just because you're a girl. It's not your fault; you were just born that way!" Normally I would have laughed at such a comment, but it slapped me with that ever present fact and I wanted to cry.
I'm going to do what I want to do and look how I want to look, to the best of my ability. If this means making it more difficult for people to think of me as anything other than female just because of their ridiculous stereotypes regarding what a male "should" wear, then I'm willing to deal with that--not because I want to make a statement against stereotypes, but because if there's one thing about myself in which I can take pride, it's the fact that I'm true to myself and my interests. Of course, I acknowledge that this will make things harder on me and I know I'm going to get hurt along the way. It will hurt more, though, if I try to make myself conform to the stereotypes of one gender or the other just to please everyone around me, and I can't do that.

Sorry to have turned this post into a speech...